Art Collection Deutsche Börse Presents: See/Change – Vision and Practice

In 2024, the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its permanent collection: the Art Collection Deutsche Börse. The exhibition See/Change at Photo London spotlights ten artistic positions from the Collection, drawn from recent acquisitions that critically reflect on poignant matters of our times. Collectively and individually, the exhibited artists explore core questions of identity, freedom and visibility, especially the representation of socially marginalised and prejudiced communities, as seen in the cosmos of young women and girls in Turkey’s Koran schools in Sabiha Çimen’s colour works, or the lived experience of Eritrean migrants in Aida Silvestri’s mixed media portraits.

This illustrated talk features curators Anne-Marie Beckmann and Renée Mussai who will introduce the exhibition and collection, in dialogue with artists Sabiha Çimen and Aida Silvestri, both represented in See/Change. They will engage in an open, informal conversation about the medium of photography and the artists’ respective practice to highlight urgent socio-political and cultural issues that spotlight the experience of different communities, and how their artmaking is linked to a profound commitment to social change and visual activism.

Ticket Price: Free with Photo London Ticket

 

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Speakers

Renée Mussai

Renée Mussai is an independent curator, writer and scholar with a special interest in Black feminist visual arts practices. As senior curator and head of curatorial and collections at Autograph, London for more than two decades, Mussai has organised many critically acclaimed solo and group exhibitions internationally and was responsible for numerous artist commissions, publications, and research initiatives. Mussai is currently research associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg; associate lecturer at University of the Arts London; advisory board member of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation; and guest curator at the Barnes Foundation. In 2023, she served as co-curator for R/evolutions, the 14th edition of PhotoIreland and artistic director at The Walther Collection, New York and Neu-UIm, Germany. Her publications include the award-winning artist monographs Lina Iris Viktor — Some Are Born to Endless Night (2020) and Zanele Muholi: Somnyama Ngonyama (2018; 2024); and the forthcoming Eyes That Commit — A Visual Gathering and Black Chronicles — Photography, Race and Difference in Victorian Britain (2025).

Copyright Portrait © Christa Holka, 2022.  

Anne -Marie Beckmann

Anne-Marie Beckmann is a French-German art historian and curator. She currently is the curator and director of the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation. Since 1999, she has curated the Art Collection Deutsche Börse, an international collection of contemporary photography, and has been responsible for the company’s cultural programme. She has also curated numerous exhibitions at Deutsche Börse’s headquarters and other museums and institutions, such as “Women War Photographers. From Lee Miller to Anja Niedringhaus“, “Open for Business. Magnum photographers on commission” or “Ernest Cole. House of Bondage”. Beckmann has been a member of the curatorial team of the Ray Fotografie Triennale Frankfurt am Main since 2012 and has published several catalogues, including seven books on the Art Collection Deutsche Börse.

She has been teaching photography and curatorial practice in the Department of Art at the Offenbach University of Art and Design since 2015 and has been an honorary professor since October 2023.

Copyright portrait © Lucas Foglia

 

Sabiha Çimen

Sabiha Çimen was born in Istanbul, Turkey. She is a self-taught photographer, graduated from Istanbul Bilgi University with an undergraduate degree in International Trade and Finance, and a Masters degree in Cultural Studies. Sabiha Çimen works on long term photo projects focusing on portraiture and still life rooted in Islamic culture. Her first and latest long-term photo project ‘Hafiz’ focuses on the daily life of the young girls in Quran schools in Turkey. Her work is also supported by Lightwork, World Press photo, Eugene Smith Foundation, Aperture-Paris Photo.

She is an associate photographer in Magnum Photo Agency. She lives between Istanbul and New York. Cimen is mostly developing self-reflective projects close to home in lstanbul. 

Copyright Portrait © Sabiha Çimen

 

Aida Silvestri 

Aida Silvestri is an interdisciplinary artist and educator of Eritrean descent based in the UK. She creates multifaceted mixed-media artworks that challenge the status quo of stigma, prejudice, and social injustice. She amplifies marginalised voices, often highlighting displacement, race, class, identity, and health, raising awareness of human rights issues and representational politics in the arts and beyond. Her socially engaged activist practice is characterised by multi-layered modes of working that often combine text from lived experiences, images and experimental techniques to manipulate the photographic surface. 

Silvestri’s work has been exhibited widely, including most recently in major group exhibitions at Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany, Autograph, London, UK, and FotoFest Biennale 2020, Houston, USA. It is also held in numerous international private and public collections.